Flexible Workplace Solutions for Low-Wage Hourly Workers

PART 1
Standard or Nonstandard Schedules — Critical Factors in the
Flexibility Equation for Low-Wage Hourly Workers
10
To determine the prevalence of the three forms of
scheduling challenges identifi ed in this report, we
analyzed the 2008 National Study of the Changing
Workforce (2008 NSCW), one of the only national
representative studies of the U.S. workforce that
provides detailed information about the quality of
workers’ lives both on and off the job. The 2008 NSCW
includes a total of sample of 3,502 workers, of which
2,769 were categorized as wage and salaried workers.
Our analysis found that roughly
50% of low-wage hourly workers
are employed in jobs that primarily
require standard schedules. The
other 50% of low-wage hourly workers
are employed in jobs requiring
nonstandard schedules. 47 This last fi nding
may even be an underestimate of the number of
workers employed in jobs requiring nonstandard
hours, since some employees reporting standard
daytime hours may occasionally work nonstandard
hours, meaning a night, weekend rotating, or variable
schedule. 48
Low-wage hourly workers on standard and nonstandard
schedules largely work in the same industries, but
in different proportions. As noted in Table 1, the
most common industry among low-wage hourly
workers employed in jobs that require standard
schedules is medical services, followed by retail trades,
manufacturing, and education services. For low-wage
hourly workers in jobs that require nonstandard
hours, the most common industry is retail trades,
with medical, manufacturing, and business services
following behind.
Defining Low-Wage Hourly Workers
and Standard and Nonstandard
Schedules
To identify the sample of low-wage hourly
workers in the 2008 NSCW, we defi ned
low-wage using the social inclusion
perspective, 49 according to which a
low-wage job is one paying less than
two-thirds the median wage for men.
Using the 2008 NSCW data to calculate
this fi gure, we restricted our sample to
workers paid $15.41 or less per hour
and who indicated that they were paid
hourly. This resulted in a sample of 648
low-wage hourly workers, on which we
based much of the analyses described
in this report. We find that 24% of
the overall workforce is in hourly
jobs paying low wages.
In this report we make comparisons
between workers employed in jobs that
generally require working standard and
nonstandard schedules. Informed by the
work of Dr. Harriet Presser, we defi ne
standard schedules as routine, Monday
through Friday daytime schedules, and
nonstandard schedules as all other
schedules. 50 Our sample of low-wage
hourly workers are almost equally split
between those on standard schedules
(n=318) and nonstandard schedules
(n=330). 51